Psychological insecurity and leadership styles (original) (raw)

One of the most fundamental human motives is the need for security. Individuals desire predictable, structured, and sheltered niches. They want to experience control over their lives, render their social interactions understandable, and make sense of themselves and their social environment. Already in his theory of motivation, Maslow (1943) highlighted the importance of the need for security. He distinguished among five categories of needs: physiological needs, security, belongingness, esteem, and self-actualization. He proposed that these needs form a hierarchy, such that a higher-order need is activated only when the lower-order need is satisfied. Security occupies a basic position in this hierarchy and is preceded only by physiological needs. Establishing and maintaining security, then, is primary to belongingness, esteem, and self-actualization. Times of terrorism, political upheavals, economic crises, national conflicts, and increasingly demanding social interactions pose substantial threats to the need for security for individuals in many cultures. Of course, these threats differ on several dimensions. Yet they all entail unpredictability, loss of control, and potential harm. As such, they may impact negatively on the individual. One such negative impact is self-uncertainty (cf. Kagan, 1972). In order to cope with self-uncertainty, individuals might implement several strategies (e.g., seeking social support, attempting to stabilize their environment, disengaging from their environment) that will help them to reestablish a sense of security. In the present chapter, we focus on a strategy that has received limited empirical attention: preference for a specific leadership style. We address the questions of when and why individuals who normally endorse democratic values prefer an autocratic over a democratic leadership style, and we discuss the relevant role of self-uncertainty as a situational trigger and of self-esteem as a dispositional moderator. Self-Uncertainty The concept of uncertainty has had its share of definitional bids. In this chapter, we focus on self-uncertainty. The self is conceived of as an organizing structure that directs thinking, feeling, and behaving (Markus, 1977; Sedikides & Gregg, 2003). As such, self-uncertainty arises when subjectively important self-aspects are in question (Sedikides & Strube, 1997; Trope, 1983). Some persons are prone to experiencing this sort of uncertainty more persistently than others. Consistently, De Cremer and Sedikides (2005) operationalized dispositional self-uncertainty in terms of self-doubt, self-esteem instability, and self-concept unclarity. Self-doubt refers to individuals' lingering doubts and concerns about their competence and abilities (Braslow, Guerretaz, Arkin, & Oleson, 2012).